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One of the topics I frequently return to is the risk assessment aspect of a recruiter’s job, or the ‘defensive’ recruitment skills, such as background and reference checking, that are a necessary part of doing a complete job as a  ecruiter. Unfortunately, there is still an undesirable tendency for these skills to be deemed an ‘admin’ part of a recruiter’s job.

So it was with great interest that I read a recent news report generated by the release of research into employee fraud in financial institutions in the period since January 2000.

Here’s what the report revealed:

Total amount of money fraudulently obtained by
employees
$217.3 million
Number of individual cases
120 (53% male, 47% female)
Number of these individual cases that were at one of
the ‘Big 4’ banks
69
Largest individual fraud (which primarily funded
expensive pearls, houses and Michael Jackson paraphernalia)
$45 million
20 years plus service of employee to defrauded
employer
1/3rd of cases
10 – 20 years service of employee to defrauded
employer
1/3rd of cases
Ten year age range most common in employee
30-39 years (41% of cases)
Previous convictions for fraud amongst 123
individuals
5 people
Most common motivation for fraud
Gambling (52% of cases)
Second most common motivation for fraud
Improve lifestyle (29% of cases)
Most common way the fraud was executed
Money stolen from customers’ bank accounts or term
deposits (34% of cases)
Longest period of undetected fraud
16 years

The report also revealed that one of the 120 cases involved an employee that was hired without any background check which, had it been undertaken, would have revealed this man’s three (!) previous gambling-related  convictions for fraud.

The report identifies the four biggest areas of risk
in motivating or enabling fraud:
1. Gambling addiction
2. Ignoring company policies
3. Lack of supervision in their role
4. Reactivating the accounts of former employees
5.  Logging into the system under another employee’s name
6. Recruiters would do well to absorb these statistics (remembering the report only reported on fraud within the financial services sector) and remember that a candidate is not obligated to volunteer   information about a conviction for fraud (or any other conviction for that matter). It is essential that recruiter and hiring managers have appropriate questions in their screening of candidates as well as a rigourous background checking process.
A recruiter should be professionally skeptical at all times. Assume nothing. Ask and check.
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